


Look Out for Number One

by charlotteschaos



Category: Hustle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-18
Updated: 2008-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1641479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlotteschaos/pseuds/charlotteschaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode 1, from Danny's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Out for Number One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Franzeska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/gifts).



> Thanks to E for the beta. This was great fun to write, thanks for the opportunity!
> 
> Written for Franzi

What you have to understand, see, is that it's human nature. Look out for number one. That's what we all do. It's what the con is based on. 

To be a real grifter, to be a true one, one that is successful, you have to understand this, but you have to transcend it.

That was lesson one. 

But at the time, I had no idea.

\--

I guess I should start the story where it began for me--conning for drinks in Eddie's bar. Poor, witless Eddie, but he did try to keep out of it. He knew who we were and what we were, but he wasn't a grass. It was him what said Mickey Bricks was out and about. He was putting together a team for one last score. The long con. Holy grail to conners. The stakes are high and the talent assembled has to be the best of the best or it won't work.

I wanted in.

My first shot, it didn't go so well. I practiced my best, my most polite, but he shut the door in my face.

I knew I had to do something special. I had to prove myself. 

In the middle of a con, your mark right there, you can't NOT open the door when there's a knock. You can't ignore it. That's suspicious. So I butted in, insinuated myself into the con. Once in, you can't drop out without arousing doubt in your mark. I was in. So in. 

It was glorious.

Mickey was different from what I'd expected. Terse, remote. Professional, I decided. Cold. That's what you hafta be to run the long con. I decided.

It was him what told me that you had to look out for number one. He says, "Don't have anything in your life you can't walk away from in a second."

So I says, I tell him, I ask, "What about your wife?"

And he says, "Always look out for number one. If you don't, no one else will."

He's dead serious and I know he's right. It's about the con. You have to be smooth, dangerous, detached.

So that's what I was thinking when I left, and what I thought when DI Depalma and Sgt. Hodges picked me up right outside of the elevator.

She says to me in that office, "Look out for number one." Second time in an hour I'm told that and I think maybe it's true. It don't feel right, but maybe that's why I'm small time. I don't see the big picture. It's the long game now and I have to think in the long term.

So I agree to let them wire me.

\--

But it don't feel right. I don't want to go. I show up late in the hopes that maybe it's happened before I get there.

But then, without all of the elements, the deal is queered. No one's going to give over untraceable cash without feeling sure about it. I get there, and Stacie hands me the case. Fit bird. Don't want to see her in jail. Don't want to see any of them in jail, but Sgt. Hodges tells me that it's going to happen with or without me. 

I almost turn and run.

Five minutes later, and I wish I had.

We're in; the deal goes through. See, the police need me to keep the mark's name out of it. He's high up in government somewhere. Greedy little pimple, and no morals. Typical politician, but this isn't about him.

I think I can stop it. I say, "Look, Mickey..." like it's going to stop it all. Like the inevitable isn't going to happen.

DI Depalma, he says, "Armed police, everyone stay right where you are!"

Then it's all happening fast. But for me, everything slooowed dooown.

We've all got our hands on our heads and there's police everywhere. Guns out, ready to shoot. I don't know that I've ever seen so many guns. 

Everyone's there, Albert, Stacie, Ash, Mickey, the whole lot of us. All of us with our hands up. All of us and the mark. Dead to rights. 

And Depalma, he tells me, "All right, Danny, you can go."

But I don't want to go. I don't want to leave these people. I don't want them to know what I've done or that I've let them all down.

"Judas," Albert says.

And he's right. I'm looking out for number one, and that's what Mickey said to do. But it don't feel right. It never did. I'm not a grass.

And I'm thinking, I'm thinking about what else Mickey said on that balcony. "It isn't about the money." I think about the story he told me about his father--his father and the dream he had about retiring and how he died right there on the floor. An honest man, living an honest life. Life isn't fair. Look out for number one.

I'm desperate. I don't want this. I say, "No, listen. This is not how it looks!"

I want to tell him. Want to tell Mickey that I was only doing what he'd said to do. I want to tell him that they were on to him before I showed up, that it wasn't me. 

Stacie slaps me, and I can't blame her. I cup my hand over my cheek, feeling the blistering pain of the contact.

DI Depalma, he tells Sgt. Hodges to pick up the case, and when she does, Mickey grabs her gun and he points it...he points it right at me.

I'm the witness, the weak link. I feel the tears springing to my eyes, but I can't beg forgiveness. There's no point in asking. I betrayed him. My stomach churns and my eyes plead. There's nothing I can really say.

Depalma says it for me, though. He says, "Don't do it, Michael."

I close my eyes, waiting for the shot. I wonder how it's going to feel. Mickey cocks the gun. Click. I hear it, I savor it. I deserve this. 

"Final lesson, Danny," Mickey says. His last words to me.

"I mean it," Depalma says.

I want to tell him not to do it. Not because of me or my life, but because it's not worth it. If he murders me, he goes down forever. I'll punish myself better than he can by killing me. Then maybe he only has a few years on this scam.

Mickey shoots.

I hear a clattering behind me after the bullet whizzes by my head. 

I look back at the hole in the wall, amazed. I'm standing right there and somehow he missed. 

When I look back at him, his steely gaze is on me as he prepares to fire another shot. 

Depalma's quicker on the draw. The bullet goes right through Mickey's head, exploding through the back in a dramatic arc of blood and brains. I've never seen anything so horrible and yet so beautiful.

Those brains, those beautiful brains with the talent for the long con, exploding out the back of his head like a melon. I can't breathe. All I can do is stare, aghast. I wanted him to be my mentor, my savior. I wanted him to teach me what he knew. I wanted to be part of his world. All I wanted was to impress the man, to have him approve of me. 

I'd done what he said, looked out for number one. But maybe I'd got it wrong, because there he was, body falling against the couch, cushions collecting his blood. 

And the sound, good God the sound of it. Like a pellet hitting a hollow thing. And that's all. That's it. That ends it.

"Oh GOD!" the mark says, and it brings me to.

"Get him out of here." It's Depalma, protecting the mark. He's shot Mickey, the only man really worthy of being a hero. It wasn't about the money for him. He had honor amongst thieves. So rare.

I can't think of anything but about how this has gone wrong. Mickey's gone, dead. And it's all my fault. And his. His fault. Depalma. "BASTARD!" I yell as I jump on him.

He clocks me with his pistol and I go down. My brain is rattled, and it all goes black.

\--

When I awake, DI Depalma is sitting next to me on the couch. God only knows where Mickey is, or why I'm sitting here.

DI Depalma, he says, "Sorry about the head."

But I'm not sorry about it at all. It's far less than I deserve.

"You killed him." This man disgusts me. I want to kill him, want to punch him, but he has the gun and I really have no power, no nothing. 

And he's telling me about he's saved my life and pushing a notepad and pen at me.

I want to kill him, but I'm overwhelmed with regret. Much as I hate him, much as I think of him as a murderer, I know I'm part of it. I joined with him. There's nothing I can do now, except to go down honorably.

It's not looking out for number one, but for once, it feels right. As right as anything can feel with Mickey dead and everyone presumably in jail.

I can't let them go down for it without me. I'm as guilty as they are, if not worse. I ratted them out. A rat amongst rats. Only they weren't rats. They were professionals and I took them down. Yeah, they were going to jail either way, but not for me, Mickey would be alive.

I can't take the deal. I can't follow through with it. Mickey died and it was my fault and I need penance. I need to find whatever way I can to take the heat off of the others. 

"You do this, or I'll see you get five years. Last chance," says DI Depalma.

I stare at him. I feel my eyes prickling with tears, though I'm not sure if it's for myself or for Mickey. I don't know, I don't care, but it feels right finally. I'm doing the honorable thing. The right thing. I feel his death in my bones. Five years is nothing to how I'm going to carry that guilt around for the rest of my life. 

So I tell him, I say to him, "Go screw yourself." The words choke me, but I'm trying to sound cool, trying not to think about what this means, because I need to do this. I need to go against my nature, against what Mickey said to me. I have to look out for the team.

There's an awkward pause, and Depalma's almost smirking. He says, "Okay, he's all yours."

I sit there, staring at him, wishing I could take him out for Mickey, to even the score. But I have nothing, and there's really no point in it. I'm not a murderer, not like him. I have at least that much honor. I hope.

It's Stacie I see first, holding a champagne bottle. Albert follows and then Ash. They're all giggling and shaking my hand, congratulating me, but God knows for what. I wonder if they've all gone completely mad until Mickey walks through the door. 

I'd like to say I had a good laugh, but at first I wasn't sure if I hadn't gone mad from the guilt and grief. I just stared at them all in wary amazement. But then they explained about watermelons and a cacklebladder.

I was still overwhelmed, but Mickey opening the briefcase full of cash brought me to.

Mickey introduced me to DI Depalma, who was really Neil Cooper. Stacie had detained the real Depalma in a hotel room through seduction. Poor guy never stood a chance.

I'm smiling, and I'm impressed, though I still feel like a tool. "So you're telling me we're home free?" I ask.

Mickey, he says, "Absolutely. Unless the police want to explain how the investigation was led by one of the accused." He looks at Neil and grins.

At that, we all laugh, but I'm still uneasy. It's harder to let go of the guilt than I thought. Or maybe I'm concussed. 

We toast to Mickey Bricks's last score. Ash, he calls it, "The end of an era."

Mickey, he says, "You know, the sweetest con of all is to con another grifter--one who should know better." 

They all stare at him aghast and I suddenly realize that they're not all laughing at me. He's pulled one over on all of them. 

Ash says, "What, do you mean you're not retiring?"

"Well I had to say something to get you all together," Mickey says.

We all laugh, because it feels good to have had a good poke at one another, and because now we know that this doesn't have to end. 

And that's when it hits me. That's when I think I get it. It's a game. Mind against mind, situation against situation. Getting one over on someone else. 

I'm grinning and I say, "It's not ALL about the money is it, Mickey?"

And Mickey, he says with a sigh, "Here endeth the first lesson."

And there beganeth my friendship with the greatest man I'd ever know--a man who wouldn't just look out for number one and who made me understand what it was all about.

 


End file.
